Allentown School District panel narrowly backs plans to add Grades K to 5.

Eleven years ago, Roberto Clemente Charter School opened its doors to students in sixth through 12th grades. Now the Lehigh Valley's first publicly funded charter school is poised to welcome younger students too.

The Allentown School Board Education Committee on Thursday narrowly approved the charter school's expansion request to serve students in kindergarten through fifth grade. The 5-4 vote sets the stage for final approval at the board's Feb. 24 meeting.

"We are confident this project will go through," Roberto Clemente Vice Principal Damian Romero said after the meeting. "I think the community support was well established today."

Principal Maritza Robert said Clemente has an agreement to use a property in the same center city neighborhood as the original charter, 136 S. Fourth St. But, she said, the location cannot be announced until final approval is granted. The current enrollment of about 320 could double.

"We always wanted to do this for a long period of time, but we had to wait until we were ready," Robert said after the vote. "We are going to provide consistency from K to 12. The innovation in our school is they are going to be told, 'College is what we do' since kindergarten."

Charter schools are publicly funded. They operate independently of local public school boards. To open, charters must receive approval by a regular school board or the state. Charters are granted on a three- or five-year basis, and any major expansions or moves need prior approval by the board that sponsored the charter.

In determining whether to grant an opening or expansion, state law says school boards can examine the level of community support, financial data and curriculum to determine if the school can survive and offers different academic programs than the regular schools.

Clemente's first charter was approved in 1999 for middle school students, two years after the state Legislature passed a law allowing charter schools to open. In its first year, it ran into problems: the first principal quit a day into the job, it couldn't hire a bus driver, some of the 100 enrolled students balked at wearing uniforms and others brawled.

The school added another grade each year. Clemente reached state targets to make "adequate yearly progress" in state math and reading tests in 2008-2009 and 2009-10 school years. The graduation rate also increased.

Nearly 200 Clemente parents, students and advocates attended the meeting in support of the school's expansion, which would continue to serve at-risk, low-income students, many of whom speak Spanish as a first language and learn English as a second language in the classroom. The crowd spilled out of the board room and into the hall.

Clemente senior class President Humberto Garcia, 17, told the committee that when he moved to Allentown he could not speak English and attended public school and Catholic school. When he enrolled in Clemente in sixth grade he felt safe in the halls and his outlook and language skills changed. He said he and his classmates think expanding to elementary school would help more children sooner.

"There's a higher sense of security in our school," he said, adding that he has been accepted to Muhlenberg College in Allentown. "If you walk through the halls feeling safe, you can walk into a classroom and do better."

The committee members who supported the expansion cited the size of the crowd as proof that the school is not only wanted, it is needed in Allentown.

"When you go to walk the halls of Roberto Clemente you feel a spirit of hope," said Allentown School Director Robert E. Smith Jr. "When you look at the spirit of the students there it gives parents in this poverty-stricken city hope. That's why I'll support this tonight."

Joining Smith in support were Directors Debra Lamb, Holly Edinger, Donna Daday and David F. Zimmerman.

Voting no were board President Jeff Glazier, Vice President Julie Ambrose and Directors Ellen B. Bishop and Andy Weiss.

Ambrose said the district's elementary schools also have strong parental and community support, citing a first-grade performance she attended Thursday that drew 200 adults. Ambrose added the district's elementary schools are diverse, whereas Clemente's would continue to serve one segment of the community.

Glazier said he was concerned about the academics of the elementary school. He said while Clemente's current students as a whole meet the state math and reading targets, special education students and those who struggle with English routinely do poorly. Glazier said he is worried that the same thing will occur in the elementary schools because Clemente officials publicly stated they do not have a plan to fix the shortcomings of those students.

Edinger said the district has the same problems improving test scores of special education students and those who struggle with English.

Lamb said Clemente also does a better job than regular public schools of teaching students how to be bilingual and literate in Spanish and English.

"Being truly bilingual and literate is a wonderful, wonderful skill," she said. "Unfortunately, the way our program is structured, honestly, we take a wonderful gift and turn it into a deficit."

Daday pointed to other statistics. She said Clemente this year is on pace to graduate all 29 of its seniors, all of whom are going on to some form of higher education.

"The reality is you have 29 kids who will be productive members of society," Daday said.

Another charter school will not get that chance in Allentown. The committee unanimously rejected the application of the Allentown Science Academy Charter School for having little community support and budget problems.